Jardins Sous la Pluie by Claude-Achille Debussy Claude-Achille Debussy was born in a small town near Paris, in 1862. His parents did not have much money and moved house several times as his father changed jobs frequently. His mother didn’t send him to school and decided to educate him at home. Debussy had an aunt who decided to pay for him to take regular piano lessons. He practised very hard, several hours a day, and made so much progress that he won a place at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 10.
Claude-Achille Debussy
Paris Conservatoire
After his unsettled childhood and lack of formal routine, he found the strict discipline at the Conservatoire very difficult at first. One of his tutors, the composer Gabriel Pierne wrote “his clumsiness and awkwardness were extraordinary and he was also shy and unsociable”. He was also an unusual student as his musical ideas were challenging and unconventional. Pierne wrote “In his piano class he used to astonish us with his starting playing” and his first attempts at composition were “strange, bizarre, difficult to understand and impossible to play”.
Debussy was certainly a rule-breaker. He wrote music that didn’t fit in with what was expected in terms of harmony and form, so it sounded harsh and unpredictable to people at the time. This is difficult to imagine now as his music is easy to appreciate to our ears. Sunrise by the famous impressionist painter Claude Monet
He was influenced by French literature and art, especially by writers who would describe a scene or a mood indirectly, using metaphor and abstract references. These writers were called Symbolists. Also he was influenced by painters who were exploring new ways to present a landscape. They wanted to capture the split second moment of a scene made interesting by a moment of unusual light or colour. These painters were called Impressionists.
Watery scene by Robert Baart
Debussy wrote Jardins Sous la Pluie in 1903. The title means Gardens in the Rain and depicts a garden in Normandy during a severe rainstorm. You can imagine the rain, sometimes falling lightly, sometimes heavily. There are musical description of swirling wind, distant thunder, raindrops dripping on leaves, and the end maybe the sunlight breaking through and revealing the glistening scene. There are two versions to listen to here. While you are listening, write down some of the images that the music suggests to you. Find some paper and pencils or pens and create your own impressionistic artwork of the rainy garden. One of them is played by Walter Gieseking and you can watch the notes at the same time. https://youtu.be/w-1ERRRUM-c The other one is played by the 10-year-old Sonosuke Takao who is just 10 years old! https://youtu.be/TaU6H34c06o
Tuileries Garden by Camille Pissarro